“Where’s your ring?” Nerina asked, scowling at my fingers drumming against the side table.

I took a gulp of wine and shrugged. It was probably lying on the dresser in my bedchamber. I was usually more mindful of such things, but, usually, my thoughts weren’t circling around a Korai who seemed to be a magnet for trouble.

“Tell us what happened again,” Cadmus said from where he stood by the hearth. “Don’t leave out any detail.”

I threw back another much-needed drink. “She was nothing but a dry, empty husk. Like something had . . . fed on her. Death was on her heels. And believe me, the end was a mercy.”

“Have you felt anything strange in the city? Anything that could account for this?” Cadmus asked.

“No—” I began, but then I remembered. “During the procession, when Elysa and Varian crested the hill . . .”

“My Uncle,” Lux supplied. “The way he watched Aurora . . . He was punishing her.”

“Has he recognized you?” Nerina asked.

Lux shook his head. “He wouldn’t. The Emperor hasn’t seen me since I still had a wet nurse. Since before . . .”

Before his mother tried to start a rebellion. Before both his parents were killed by Adresto. I ran a hand through my hair.

Lux watched me. “Poison. You know the Korai’s illness had to be poison.”

His fondness for that particular weapon was no secret. But what happened in the temple . . . “Perhaps,” I said. “But tonight . . . no poison could have done that.”

A rumble rolled from Dacian’s chest. “The Korai was punished. Now this happens. I don’t like coincidences.”

Cadmus glanced at him. “You think the two are related?”

Dacian gave an affirming grunt.

“It doesn’t matter if they are,” I said. “Plans have changed. I didn’t believe they'd ever harm a Korai. At least, not before she was mated. But now?” I shook my head. “I wonder if Adresto might kill Aurora before he risks us getting our hands on her.”

“You seemed so determined to win her,” Nerina said sharply.

I sighed, ignoring the implications behind her words. “The bond would have been a strong bargaining chip with the King. Whatever it is he wants her for, he’d have to go through me to get it. But . . . Aurora is not what I expected. I suppose we’ll just have to reason with her instead.”

“After we’ve kidnapped her?” Lux asked. “That seems doubtful.”

From the place where he sprawled across a settee, Peleus gave his opinion in the form of a drunken, earth-rattling snore.

Nerina lobbed a pillow at his head. He woke long enough to offer her an obscene gesture before returning to his boozy slumber.

“If she’s away from here,” I said, “if she’s able to see the truth of things clearly, it may erase her sense of loyalty to this place.”

“Even so, after tonight, the Korai will be more heavily guarded,” Lux warned.

Nerina’s eyes flashed. “Good. I’m ready for some fun.”

Dacian stood. Head cocked to the side. Listening, as he always did when he caught something even our God-Blooded ears couldn’t hear. He raised a cautioning hand, every muscle tense. “They’re coming.”

Then I heard it. Footsteps rushing down the hall.

Shit.

The sitting room doors flew open and soldiers rushed in.

There was barely a drop of divine blood among the fodder they sent as a first wave to test us. It would have taken half a thought for any one of us to wipe the room clean. But I hadn’t lied to Aurora. Needless death was something I disdained. And in this case, could even be construed as an act of war. So I ordered my Seven to lower the weapons they’d drawn in a heartbeat. Even Peleus, drunk as he was, had managed to straggle to his feet, fists ready for a fight.

One guard stepped away from the rest. Sweat dotted his forehead and his hands trembled as he lifted the warrant. “A . . . Aidoneus of M . . . M . . . Myridia . . . you are hereby charged—”

“Enough,” I barked. “I get the point. Am I the only one your warrant lists?”

He glanced around at my friends, and the scent of his fear filled the room. He nodded.

I turned to Cadmus—the only one who would understand my words. “Get out,” I ordered in Stygian—the sibilant language of the Underworld. “Find Cassia. Stay out of the city until this is done.”

His mouth set in a grim line, but he nodded his understanding.

Then I stood still as marble as the frightened humans slapped iron fetters around my wrists.

A brown rat scurried across the algae-covered floor. Its companion, an albino whose red eyes glowed menacingly in the dark, followed.

A day had passed. Twenty-four hours spent in the damp, cold tomb beneath the palace, only the rats for company. I tried to focus on their small scratching sounds. On the waves that crashed disconcertingly close to the thin slit of a window above my head. But a welcome distraction soon appeared in the form of distant, feminine footsteps.

For a moment, my heart sped. I sat up, listening intently. But the cadence of the steps was all wrong—the rhythm of it more like the footfalls of a child than a female grown. I fell back, foolishly disappointed.

Leaning back against the rough-hewn stone wall, I waited for my visitor to arrive.

A tiny hooded figure stepped from the shadows and into the circle of wavering light from the single, stinking tallow candle that illuminated my cell. She had tried to hide her hair beneath a forest green hood, but it only took one glance at the freckles covering her face to know her origin.

“Ah, an Alban. That must make you Aurora’s handmaiden.” Or so Nerina had gathered from her time spent snooping around the city.

“You know,” I continued, “one of my Seven has a nose stronger than any bloodhound. He said the Korai had a familiar scent wrapped up tight with her own. A Livonian spy’s scent.”

Green eyes, curved upwards like a cat’s, watched me impassively. “You should have sought me out, Myridian. Just as the King instructed you to. Perhaps then you wouldn’t be stuck behind those bars, spelled irons around your wrists.”

I glanced down at the noxious iron—its magic-leeching chill around my wrists. Spelled. No wonder my power felt so muted. So distant. “Are they now? That explains a great deal.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I doubted you’d approve of my methods.”

“I don’t. The King approves even less.”

“It has always amazed me how quickly news reaches his ears. Care to share his secret?”

She just smiled. “Do you know what I think, my lord?”

“Enlighten me.”

“I think you never had any intention of delivering the Korai. I think that’s why you so brazenly marched into the city and threw your name in the Trials. I think you meant to keep her for yourself.”

I lifted my fettered hands to my heart. “You wound me.”

Her lips thinned.

I sighed. “What do you want, little spy?”

“I want to know why you’re still here.”

“Flee and ruin my brilliant plans? I think not.”

“If you think I’ll stand by and watch you—”

I lunged forward, hands wrapping around the iron bars of my cell, rust rough against my calloused palms. “Do not threaten me, little spy. I’ll get the Korai out of the city. But I will do it on my terms. Go tell your master that I don’t appreciate the interference.”

“He is not my master,” she said with a low hiss.

“Ah . . . I’ve touched a nerve.” I looked her over and the truth was clear. “But you are used to having a master, aren’t you? The enduring desperation leaves its mark. It never truly leaves a slave, even when their chains are only the dust of memory.”

Fire burned in those cat eyes. “What game are you playing, Myridian?”

I released the bars, the iron there little better than the spelled metal around my wrists. Both chaffed horribly against my magic. I shrugged. “I know more about this place’s laws than its own prince. They can’t try a competitor for any crime during the Trials. And they are bound by their holy law to let me compete. If I win, my slate is rubbed clean. A full pardon for any and all crimes I’ve ever committed against Doria, real or otherwise.”

She shook her head. “Do you even know the evidence they have against you?”

“I’m not an idiot. They must be blaming me for that dead female in the temple.”

“It’s worse than that. The dead girl is not some commoner. She is the daughter of one of the most powerful governors in the empire. And she has a history with you. She is the novice who refused to anoint you. Aurora inspected her body. Guess what she knocked loose from the girl’s fist.”

“Don’t play games with me.”

“Your signet ring.”

My right thumb moved across my bare finger.

The onetime slave-turned-spy watched me, waiting for my reaction.

“Well, then, little spy… I suppose there’s only one course of action left to us.”

“And what would that be?”

“Simple, really. I have to win.”